The jerusalem scrolls, p.5
The Jerusalem Scrolls, page 5
Gabriel Darwin lowered himself into one of the cabin’s front seats, sighed happily as he took in the splendors of his new Gulfstream and that new plane smell, then took out his cell phone to call his assistant.
“Hey, Gloria. Any calls I should know about before we take off?” he asked.
“Well, Pastor, I have too many to bother you with now,” she drawled on, “but there is one from Mr. Shapiro—your agent in Tel Aviv?—that you might want to follow up on. He said it was very important and that you’d want to know about it right away. Well, I told him—”
“Good Lord, Gloria. I pray for patience, but I’m just not getting it fast enough. Please, give me his number. I’ll call him now.”
She passed on the details which he wrote in the little black book he always carried, then, without saying goodbye, he ended the call. He then punched in the number for his antiquities agent in Tel Aviv, who answered promptly.
“Hey there, Remi. What’ve y’all got for me?” He listened intently for a while as the agent relayed his efforts to locate the most desirable artifacts for the Biblical Hall Museum. And in that regard, Remi Shapiro may have scored big.
Remi began to explain about the boys and their find when Darwin interrupted him. “Hold on, boy. I’ve told you I don’t need to know details of origination. Plausible deniability and all that, right?” The extensive inventory in his personally funded Biblical Hall Museum displayed artifacts with provenances either best not mentioned or wholly fabricated. Either way worked for Darwin. “Just where might we find this so-called silver scroll now?” he asked eagerly. A few more moments passed as he listened. “Well, shit, Remi! Do whatever it takes to get hold of that thing! Yes, I most definitely want it!…Alright, I’ll see you first thing in the morning. Yeah, we’re staying at the Hilton, the one on the beach… But I want some good news then, ya hear? Okay, that’s settled. We’ll see you then.”
Chapter
Nine
The shared sherut taxi, a minivan accommodating up to ten passengers, departed Ben Gurion Airport northwest up Highway 1 bound for the Hotel Indigo in Tel Aviv, where Hana—ever the team’s self-appointed travel coordinator—had booked room reservations for the four of them. Since Simon Ginzberg had also booked the night there, delaying his planned trip to Jerusalem for a day, it made more sense for everyone.
Hana’s cousin, Karl Dengler, had never been to Israel before, and he took in the sights eagerly, his head swiveling constantly as he snapped photos of various monuments, synagogues, and quaint clusters of Orthodox Hassidim they passed as the taxi entered the city’s diamond exchange district.
After checking in and dropping their bags off in their rooms, Michael called Simon and arranged for them to meet in the lobby. The old man was sitting in the lounge when the group approached him.
“Miss Sinclair!” Simon said, as he pushed himself up to greet everyone. “It is so good to see you again. It has been far too long.” He gave her a gentle hug. “And who else have you brought with you, Michael?”
“Simon Ginzberg, this is Dr. Aaron Pearce, an old friend from Loyola. And surely you remember Sergeant Karl Dengler of the Swiss Guard?”
“Yes, of course. Hello again, Karl. And it is very good to meet any friend of Michael’s, Dr. Pearce.” He shook hands with both men.
“It’s Aaron, Simon, and the pleasure’s all mine. Michael has told me wonderful things about you.”
“Ah, take all of it with a speck of salt. Our friend Michael here is a marvelous storyteller.” He winked at the priest with a wide smile. Then, looking around the lounge, he spied a more private sitting area in the corner and gestured for everyone to move there.
As the five took seats, Simon quietly explained, “So… I happen to have gotten a call from an old friend here in Tel Aviv as our ship—I was on a Mediterranean cruise with my daughter—pulled into Ashdod port south of here. We were going to go straight to Jerusalem, but my friend, Ishak Ramzi, called to ask for my help with a particular silver scroll he came across. He is a licensed antiquities dealer here, you see, so I imagine he does come across fairly extraordinary objects from time to time.
“Now, I do not know the provenance of this particular artifact, nor have I asked as to its legitimacy. The Israel Antiquities Authority has quite thorough regulations about such things, but all that is irrelevant as far as I am concerned. I was only asked to help translate and interpret it. And I must say, it is a most remarkable item.
“Unfortunately, the silver had tarnished such that it required our cleaning then rending it into twelve strips, or panels if you will, in order to read it properly, a procedure which came out fine—though, I must admit, my heart was in my throat as the metalsmith worked his blade. The scroll possesses some of the most fascinating historical content I have come across in my long experience with such things. I took photographs of the panels using my phone, along with my translations, to share with you. I do hope they come out alright.”
“Michael said it mentions the Mithraists,” Aaron blurted, eager to jump ahead. “If so, that’s nothing short of incredible!”
Simon smiled at him patiently. “Yes, it does indeed mention the Mithras cult, and the suffering it was experiencing from Christians working to crush Mithraism. The scribe who had engraved the scroll had laid out a disturbing scene of crisis amongst the Mithraic tribe, as if they were preparing to leave their mithraeums for fear of being attacked.
“But the Mithraists also had another problem. Apparently, they had gained a vast treasure from the Essenes and other cultures which had been plundered by the group’s members, Roman soldiers known as syndexioi. In order to protect their treasure from Christian forces, they spread it around Jerusalem in the most arcane of places. Here, I made some notes. It makes no sense today, as I’m sure you’ll agree…” Simon reached into his pocket and withdrew a sheet of paper, then began reading it to the others.
“‘Thirty talents of silver can be found under the pillar on the northern side of the big cistern in Acel Dama. When you go sixty cubits into the canal that comes from the reservoir of Solomon, you will find ninety-five talents of gold. Dig down four cubits in the middle of the two boulders in the Valley of Achor, and you will find two pots full of silver coins. At the mouth of the underground cavity in Aslah sit two hundred talents of gold. Seventy talents of silver are located in the eastern tunnel which is to the north of Kohlit. Dig for only one cubit into the memorial mound of stones in the valley of Jericho to find twelve talents of silver. On the north side of Jacob’s Well are buried eleven bars of gold, three cubits down.’
“And here’s another…” he said, turning the page over.
“‘Fifty talents lie under the stairs in the salt pit. Sixty-five bars of gold lie on the third terrace in the cave of the old Washer’s House. Eighty talents of silver are enclosed in wooden vessels that are in the cistern of a burial chamber in Kepah’s courtyard. Seventeen cubits from the front of the eastern gates lies a cistern. Thirteen talents lie in the canal of the cistern. Five silver bars are located at the sharp edge of the rock which is under the eastern wall in the cistern. The cistern's entrance is under the large paving stone threshold. Dig down three cubits in the northern corner of the pool that is east of Kohlit. There will be twenty-two talents of silver coins.’
“Now, a ‘talent’ was an ancient measure of weight, which would be equivalent to about thirty-three kilograms, or seventy-three Imperial pounds. I made some very rough calculations from everything I’d read, and I admit I was wholly flabbergasted at the total amount described here, which comes to something in the range of over one hundred fifty tonnes of gold and silver.” He paused and looked up at the others, blinking through his thick spectacle lenses.
Hana couldn’t bear the suspense. “How much would that be worth today, Simon?” she asked in a hushed tone.
“Based on today’s market values, I put it at just shy of three billion U.S. dollars,” the old man whispered as he leaned back in his chair, “making it the largest known buried treasure in world history.”
Chapter
Ten
“Three billion dollars?!” Karl repeated in awe.
“Hey, hey…” Michael quietly cautioned his friend as he glanced around the lobby. “Keep it down, Karl. We don’t want to attract any undue attention.”
“Sorry,” the young guard murmured, “but I can’t believe what I’m hearing.”
“I agree,” Aaron admitted. “Even way back then, that would have been as massive a fortune as it is today, relatively speaking. Simon, were you able to date the scroll?”
“No, but given that the fear of Christian persecution was described as being so potent at the time, I would probably put it in the late third or early fourth century, about the time Mithraism as a whole had been largely extinguished.
Hana looked puzzled. “I’d known nothing of the Mithraists before this, but I had heard of the Essenes which, by all accounts, were a peaceful and reclusive sect living in poverty. So having that much treasure makes no sense to me.”
“Yes, that is a bit of a historical mystery,” the old scholar continued, “but there are several theories about their treasure’s origins.
“For example, some scholars believe that, if the treasure did exist, it came from Jerusalem’s First Temple period—1200–586 BCE—from the temple built by King Solomon himself on the spot where God is said to have created Adam. That temple was razed to the ground by the Babylonians in 586 BCE and the treasure stolen or hidden away at that time. And if so, then that likely means this may also be part of the fabled treasure of King Solomon, rumored to contain such legendary relics as the Ark of the Covenant and epic amounts of gold and silver plundered from the Egyptians during the Exodus.
“But most believe it came from the Second Temple—516 BCE to 70 CE—during which time it was hidden by the Jews in the course of the Roman military blockade of Jerusalem during the First Jewish Revolt in 70 CE, when the Romans destroyed the Temple and plundered the city.
“Either way, how it made its way to the hands of the Essenes is yet another mystery.”
Simon paused, smiling at the team’s reaction to the colorful history he had laid out for them. “It’s a lot to take in, isn’t it?” he concluded.
Michael nodded. “It is amazing, yes, all of it. So, now what happens to the scroll? Can we see it?”
“Yes, I told Ishak that your coming all this way would merit some time with the artifact, and that perhaps you might offer suggestions as to what its disposition should be. Let’s go visit him now, shall we? He’s waiting for us.”
“You bet!” Aaron said gleefully, overjoyed at his good fortune. “Mikey, you do live a charmed life!”
“Mikey?” asked Hana with an arch of her brow. “Cute, but it doesn’t really fit you.”
“And let’s leave it at that, shall we?” Michael groaned.
Karl drove their rental car as the GPS navigation system guided them south down Highway 2, then through various city streets to Neve Tzedek and Ishak Ramzi’s house. Karl had suggested they stop at various touristy places along the way, but Simon was anxious to get to Jerusalem to join Rachel and his family.
Arriving at their destination, Karl pulled the car up into the wide circular driveway and stopped in front of the spacious home. As everyone got out, Hana remarked on how gorgeous the garden was. She stood next to a large tropical-looking plant some three meters high with massive, umbrella-shaped leaves, each spanning a meter across with an extremely coarse texture and deep venation.
“Look at these plants…they’re practically prehistoric, and as large as an elephant’s ear!”
“That is the glorious Gunnera manicata, or Brazilian giant rhubarb,” Aaron said. “They’re my favorite, but they require a lot of water.”
“Are you into plants, Aaron?” she asked.
“It’s kind of my therapy, spending time in the garden at home when I’m not working. I’ll have to figure out how to do that now that I’m living in Rome. Once you’re hooked on nature, there’s no going back.”
As the group wandered up onto the porch, Simon noticed the front door had been left ajar. He rang the doorbell.
“Ishak?” he called out in his raspy voice. “We’re here.” He knocked on the door. No response.
Simon pushed the door open further and everyone stepped inside the bright and airy atrium foyer.
“Ishak?” he called again, then turned to the others. “It is a big house. Maybe he’s in the artifact room.”
“He has an entire room for artifacts?” Michael ventured. “Impressive.”
“It’s actually a hidden room. Quite ingenious. Let’s see if he’s in there.”
Leading the way toward the middle of the house and into the library, Simon knocked on the hidden bookshelf door, expecting Ishak to open it. But again, still no response.
Reaching beneath the mantle of the fireplace as Ishak had done, Simon found and pressed the hidden button. The secret door popped ajar, and he pulled it open.
He gasped and stepped back. The body of his friend, Ishak Ramzi, lay sprawled on the floor, his throat slashed from ear to ear. A thick, red patch of blood had pooled beneath his head and spread across the hardwood floor. His vacant eyes stared at the ceiling.
Hana came up behind Simon and gasped when she saw the body, her hand covering her mouth. Michael made the sign of the cross and uttered a silent prayer. Aaron stared in disbelief. Karl pushed his way through, knelt down and instinctively felt for signs of a pulse, though it was clear no one could have survived such a fatal wound.
Tears stung Simon’s eyes. “Who could do such a terrible thing?” he asked no one in particular. Michael took hold of his friend’s shoulders and led him to one of the nearby stools in the room.
“Sit down, Simon. Would you like some water?”
“I…I think so, yes.”
“I’ll get it,” Hana offered, leaving the room to look for the kitchen.
“Touch nothing, Hana,” Aaron cautioned. “That goes for everyone. Simon? Do you think this might have anything to do with that scroll? Where is it?”
The old man looked up at the table on which the silver strips had been laid out.
“It’s gone! It was right there,” he said, pointing to the large vacant space on the wide table.
“Well, that explains it, then,” Aaron mused. “Obviously, someone else knew about it. We need to call the police, Michael.”
Michael looked at Karl, a decorated Swiss guard, and their closest thing to law enforcement at the moment. Karl was inspecting the layout of the room. On the ceiling in one corner he spotted the inverse black dome of a security camera. Glancing at the worktable, he found a pair of cotton conservation gloves and slid them on his hands.
“Simon, any chance you might know where the base station is for this security system?” Karl asked as he started looking through the cabinets in the room that covered most of the wall spaces.
“No, he mentioned nothing about that to me. I only noticed many of the cameras throughout the house.”
“Yes, I saw two outside as we came in, one on the porch and another monitoring the driveway. The base has to be here somewhere…” Karl spotted what looked like a wall panel but could be a door set flush against the wall, one with no handle and with nothing impeding access to it. He pushed against the wall at its seam, which yielded slightly before popping ajar, much like the secret door to the room itself.
He pulled it open. “Just as I suspected…” he muttered to himself. Inside were several pieces of equipment, including the home’s modem and Wi-Fi router and two digital video recorders, with a large monitor set against the inside back wall. The monitor display was split into several windows, each cycling through various camera feeds throughout the house, revealing both internal and external views. After a few moments, one window displayed the room they were in now, showing himself peering into the closet and the others standing around the room, as well as Ishak’s body lying on the floor.
“Simon, when was the last time you spoke with your friend here?” Karl asked.
“Well,” the old man thought, “that would have to be around ten o’clock last night, after I’d checked in at the hotel and called Ishak to let him know where I’d be.”
Pressing a few buttons, Karl selected only the artifact room’s video feed, then positioned the playback to start at ten o’clock the previous night, fast-forwarding the replay until he saw Ishak enter the room and sit at the table with what were probably strips of the silver scroll spread out before him. He sped up the replay until suddenly he saw another man walk cautiously through the door wearing a small backpack. Setting it to play at normal speed, Karl watched as Ishak, surprised and angry at the intrusion, stood to take action. But he had no chance to act, for instantly the intruder reached up with his right arm and swung it across the Arab’s throat, the flashing glint of steel from an apparent blade evident beneath the bright light above.
The others had gathered around Karl by now and watched silently as Ishak grabbed for his throat, reached for the man, then fell to the floor, struggling for his final breaths. In a matter of moments, he fell still, his vacant eyes wide open in shock.
The intruder wiped the blade on Ishak’s shirt and tucked it inside his own pocket, then turned and looked around the room. As he did so, Karl paused the replay and zoomed in on the man’s face. It was a face he wouldn’t forget.
The man then gathered the silver strips from the table and carefully placed them inside his backpack. He looked around the room again, grabbed the other parchment scrolls he found, then made for the door back out to the library.
Karl stopped playback, then switched the monitor to retrieve the feed for the driveway camera. Fast-forwarding to the approximate time of the murder, shortly before midnight, he watched until he saw the man emerge from the front door. A black Land Rover had pulled up in the driveway. The man quickly jumped in and the vehicle exited at the other end of the circular drive.
